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Post by Graph on Mar 6, 2016 14:27:28 GMT -8
Hello folks, back in the days of the Mask of Arcadius beta I was hanging around the Innomenpro forums posting my strategy-centered Sunrider playthroughs and videos. Since then we got this forum dedicated to Sunrider, so I decided to do it here this time. This time is a bit different since the last time I played was Mask of Arcadius 7.1 or 7.0, so it's more or less a blind run rather than doing strange things with advance knowledge like I'm prone to doing. Set it to Admiral Mode. Questionaire choices leaned toward "forgive people" and "suspect the Alliance". Said that I didn't sell the Wishall, and we let the Legion go. Mission 1Lots of things different from what I remember right off the bat, nice to see that balance tweaks are still ongoing. The limit to the amount of CP held at once is smart, one of those things that seems obvious in hindsight. I guess it won't be as common to get screwed over from not having enough CP going into a mission. Vanguards look like even more of a "high power, high cost" option now, too. Not getting enough funds for upgrades, that might be another story! Pirate Grunts are firing missiles at me! Was that a thing before? That's a lot of missiles. The Sunrider almost got blown up right off the bat-- I decided to try again. After managing the enemy count with my own missiles, I took a lot less damage. The Havoc still has stuff to fire on Turn 2 though, which was pretty cool. Since upgrades are pretty even at this point (I think?) lasers seemed pretty palatable again. Feels like their range has actually improved; I guess a good thing since we'll probably see tons of shielding on both sides eventually. Things became a bit campy since the destroyers preferred to keep their distance and take potshots from afar, but we can play that way too. Sola hits like a truck; the Havoc goes down in short order, and soon we're done. Those repair costs though! I felt that bill in my gut. I'll have to figure out if Chigara's Repair mitigates that or just adds to the bill... Results--- As unusual as this change seems, I'm liking the Japanese voices. In general I think the more girls there are compared to guys in a game, the more likely I am to choose Japanese when given dual audio choices. (That's not to say I disliked the English cast in general though. I think most of them worked, and there were some standouts like Sola and that Alliance battleship commander) When we get full voice acting like this, I tend to set the text to advance automatically if I can. This made for an interesting moment when the choice to save Cosette using the Wishall came up; I saw the option, considered it for a moment, but before I decided, time was up! Sorry Cosette, maybe next time. Oh, what's this? Achievement unlocked: No loli pirate something something... way to read the mood, game! And I gotta say, the art for this game has really come a long way. The new GUI and character art are beautiful. And I really appreciate moving the cinematics from inside battle, which Ren'py isn't too great at handling, to the story cutscenes with dynamic camera angles and effects. Love it! Icari and Kryska are Love, too. Perfect way to kick off the end of the first mission. "Permission to enter!" indeed... |
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Post by Graph on Mar 6, 2016 16:04:49 GMT -8
Hoo boy. Where to start? I'm liking all these options in the new store. For the time being I got... - 2 Torps, Quantum Torps (of course!) - 1 Repair Drone - 2 Alliance Cruisers - 1 Union Frigate (lol) - Portable Repair Booster - Gravitino Generator - Armor Penetrating Rounds (not sure how useful this'll be, just seeing what Black Jack can do) And these upgrades. Fully retroactive upgrades! We can even customize our loadout to suit the mission now. I don't have much intel to start with so I strip off Sunrider's laser upgrades and a little HP/EN. Then I upgrade HP and EN for the ryders all around. A bit later I see that the next stage gimmick is "no missiles" so I hold off on those for now. I extended Bianca's shield 1 space and lowered weapon costs for Phoenix and Paladin a bit, didn't pass any special "extra hit" thresholds though. And here we go... Mission 2So, those of you who remember me from before might know I was one of the pioneers of the "nuke everything before they can hurt you" style of Sunrider. Or so I like to think. Shoutouts to the devs for creating this special mission! I have to say it's a bit more than I expected. Mostly played similar to how I did before (sans nukes) but a few new tools saved my butt here: - Draw Fire. I was like "How are we going to handle this rocket spam situation when the Sunrider's not here?". This thing turned out to be a good answer, compared to the tricks we were using before this is some REALLY reliable aggro. Even after taking a rocket to the face the Paladin still took negligible damage from smaller missiles; so long as we don't let 2 rockets get through it was fine. - Atk Up / Hit Up. The new big boosts didn't escape my notice, and like Drath said their stacking with other offensive buffs really takes the cake. Special mention goes to using Hit Up on the Alliance Battleships for some alarmingly accurate Cannon fire! That said, things got quite messy around the middle for a couple of reasons. One was that I thought "Survive for 5 turns" meant we were running away in 5 turns, so I wasn't very proactive about taking out carriers instead of the battleships in front of me. Another was the torpedo destroyers, I didn't cover my upper-right with flak well and I lost both Black Jack and Bianca to splash damage. The gunboat squad was fun to play around with. Even though I had them go all-in against the enemy ryders (no shield cover), the enemy still wouldn't look away from the Paladin who was using Draw Fire. Except the PACT Fast Cruisers, whose small assault guns actually didn't do too much to the gunboats. Later on I was using the Gravity Gun to drag ryders into a 2-3 gunboat crossfire; pretty efficient in terms of the Bianca's EN. When the mission was winding down the Phoenix also joined the feeding frenzy. I used a couple of Full Forwards and a couple of SRJs. Considered Resurrection and Vanguard Cannon, but by the time I got the CP I was able to take care of most of the threats. I saved my rockets and missiles for late in the mission after all! ResultsEesh, I lost half my money to repairs again. At least I have a full stock of CP, maybe that'll let me do better on the next mission. |
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Post by vaendryl on Mar 6, 2016 19:15:45 GMT -8
Always love reading these!  Good to have ya back, man. |
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Post by Graph on Mar 6, 2016 20:46:51 GMT -8
Purchases were simple this time. I had enough intel to get double shots for the Seraphim (140 EN, 69 EN cost) so I got that. I wanted to try out the MIRV torpedoes at some point so I kept store purchases light; just two torps and two gunboats. Mission 3We started out strong and destroyed most of the initial enemy units in two turns. That took some consumable rockets and missiles though, so the rate of reinforcements eventually outpaced our ability to take them out. We got a bit surrounded on Turn 3 (There's another assault carrier off the top of the screen there), so at this point I turned on All Guard before enemy phase began, then turned on Full Forward on the following turn. I guess it was worthwhile, we took some damage but everyone survived. I'd guess the enemy's target in this mission was about 70% Paladin, 20% Sunrider, 6% Liberty and 4% Phoenix. So Draw Fire was still doing work but it's not totally foolproof, seemingly. With that big wave on Turn 5, I would've needed a couple more turns to wipe out every enemy at the end. I could've handled things much better though. I realized that the snowballing BS of Asaga's Awakening is perfect for this kind of mission, so maybe I should've upgraded BlackJack instead of Seraphim this time. Also I used a Vanguard Cannon on only 4 enemy units, obviously it would've been much better to wait until the big wave shows up on Turn 5. Used that, 2 Full Forwards, 2 All Guards and a Repair Drone. Pretty diverse Command set, doesn't really feel dominated by any one command. ResultsNow I know, this mission's not quite the time to be saving up cash! There's more ships to knock down and we can do it with a little more firepower! But at any rate, we do have enough to buy the MIRV torps. Let's see how that goes. |
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Post by Graph on Mar 7, 2016 0:16:45 GMT -8
Upgraded Liberty's EN to 140. We can do double repair now, if needed. Upgraded Black Jack's kinetics. No matter how I feel about the Black Jack, Awakened Asaga is undeniably strong and it's high time I gave it some attention. Upped flak resist for Sunrider's missiles-- you never know, it might be handy to drive them right past mooks at some point. And a hull upgrade for the ones that are still cheap. As for the store, it's 3 torps and MIRV torps. It's time for the field test. Mission 4Now, it would have been trivial to clean out this map on Turn 2, but I KNOW there's more to this map than what we initially see, so I only use 1 rocket and a few missiles on the pirates. Right on schedule, some old friends appear! There's a lot of enemy flak packed close together so I can't down any Nightmares right off the bat. So I gather everyone close together, use Draw Fire / All Guard and end the turn, hoping for the best. Historically I haven't had much luck using flak against Nightmare missiles, but... One Nightmare shoots missiles. We actually manage to shoot down most of them with flak, so far so good. 3 Nightmares run up 3 spaces away from our formation and do... nothing?! The Falcon gets pretty close without doing anything, either. Are my defenses so strong, or did they misgauge my power? Anyway, that move pretty much decides the battle. Thanks to our gunboats we're now able to Suppress the Nightmares to normal ryder Evasion and take out 3 Nightmares without using any rockets. And thanks to Awakening, Black Jack is doing some crazy stuff at this point. Then we Disable the Falcon, shoot the Cruisers full of missiles, then whittle away the Falcon and last Nightmare at our leisure. Hmm, it seems Asaga's Awakening expires at low health. Good thing I found that out when things were easy! ResultsMaybe the current AI is keeping even strong enemies from using their potential... one thing's for sure though, offensively our team has come a long way from the MoA days. |
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Post by Graph on Mar 7, 2016 10:19:34 GMT -8
From the store, 1 torp, Sunrider shield upgrade, repair drones mkII, 2 repair drones, 2 Ryuvian Falcons. For upgrades we get 2 missiles for the Paladin and bump the base damage to 600; we can do damage on the same turn as Draw Fire if need be. Also upgraded Phoenix's Melee, and nudge up accuracy on various weapons we've been using. Mission 5Again, I can easily complete this on Turn 2 if I wanted to. The Union Battleships are pretty abusable-- I used the Gravity ability to push a battleship one space away so its flak field isn't so close, then I use 3 Flak Downs on a group of Fast Cruisers. 1 MIRV torp later, boom. 3 Fast Cruisers are dead. Also frees up Claude to spam the ATK up ability. Also the usual pulling enemies into range stuff. Additionally, on Turn 2 I realize that the Seraphim can one-shot Fast Cruisers, and it gets two Awakened shots. Nasty. Black Jack is also really shining now that I remember to repair it. What? Only 3 carriers? I am disappoint. I waited out turns 4 through 6 to see if anyone else would show up, but no such luck. Chalking it up as a freebie, I proceed. Results |
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Post by Marx-93 on Mar 7, 2016 15:55:07 GMT -8
Yeah, MIRV torps are pretty broken. I used them in mission 4, but until Cera I didn't use them more. Felt like bullying PACT, lol.
Now, at Cera there was more than one time where I shuddered and had to use them.
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Post by Blackhead on Mar 7, 2016 16:53:36 GMT -8
Yeah, MIRV torps are pretty broken. I used them in mission 4, but until Cera I didn't use them more. Felt like bullying PACT, lol. Now, at Cera there was more than one time where I shuddered and had to use them. I think torps are decently balanced as long as you don't have the splash damage upgrade. But with splash dmg in combination with flak off/ pulling ships with gravity... holy crap It does feel extremely satisfying to nuke capital ships + Cruisers, Ryders with a single rocket though. MIRVs are probably key in a space whale playthrough. Haven't played on space whale yet, but I think it's doable in Lib Day. |
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Post by lordgorchnik on Mar 7, 2016 18:21:49 GMT -8
Bah, this guy is popping up everywhere Gorchnik goes.
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Post by knightoblivion on Mar 7, 2016 22:58:09 GMT -8
I completely forgot about my MIRV torpedos until the beginning of the battle of Cera where I was staring a group of Nightmares and Assault Carriers going "fuck, if only I had some sort of AoE like those damned new missile boats....." *Flash of Insight* "Oh. I do. Shit....." I was only playing on Captain though, so I didn't need the missiles till around then.
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Post by Graph on Mar 9, 2016 15:16:55 GMT -8
At the store, I pick up 2 torps and a Union Battleship. Lasers have been looking better recently, so the upgrades this time actually went into energy weapons for Black Jack. The Sunrider still focuses on missiles and kinetics, though that may change the next time we get to upgrade. Mission 6I don't know if this is considered a tricky mission or whatever, but I did run into a close call on the first turn so I guess it wouldn't hurt to show a step-by-step. Initial formation set up like thisThe Sunrider is going to assassinate the PACT Supports first thing. After putting damage buffs on the Sunrider I use Gravity to pull a center Battleship down and right, use FlakOff, then fire a torp like so. A Battleship and Support go down, and since we used FlakOff I take the opportunity to finish off the remaining Battleship with missiles. Then Sunrider warps to the bottom-right, takes out the Support with 2 Assaults, warps to the upper-right, and destroys the other support. I don't have enough EN to use Assault 2 more times, so instead I use Gravity to trigger a counterattack while the Sunrider is up there. After the other units have moved, I warp back. "Can't touch this" achieved! Some ass-beatings later, we wipe out 1 group of ryders too. Turn 1 ends like this. What I meant by a close call is that two of the enemy's rockets got through my flak defenses, but only one of those scored a hit on the Paladin. Another hit and the Paladin would've gone down. A Cera Gunboat almost went down to laser fire, too. You might notice it's the only unit that's not covered with shielding at all. I guess the game still punishes for that stuff! Turn 2. Fast Cruiser time! If you have trouble hitting a nimble target, it might be good to have a Ceran Gunboat go Suppress it. The Alliance Carrier can one-shot a mid-sized ship with its Kinetics so I give it a HitUp. We take out those PACT Fast Cruisers before they get to do anything, and end Turn 2 like this. Turn 3... I'm not liking all those Torpedo Destroyers up there, so I use Gravity on a couple of ships and fire Vanguards on the lined up units. I had Sola poke out a couple of Cruisers too, one-shotting each. After taking out the remaining flak sources-- the weakened Battleship and a Cruiser-- I fire a torp to wipe out 3 Missile Frigates and 2 Torpedo Destroyers. End of Turn 3 looks like this, all enemies are onscreen. Pretty tidy, no? It's all downhill from there. Oh, I use ShdDown a couple of times on one of the upper-right battleships, and this lets the Black Jack smash it from halfway across the screen using Pulse. It's gooooood. From this shot of the end of Turn 4 I guess it was like, 11 or 12 spaces away? Results |
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Post by Graph on Mar 9, 2016 23:58:47 GMT -8
Lots of cockpit view art lately. Looking good! It looks final battle-ish so I don't spare the expenses. Not quite enough for the Vanguard Spread Field unless I sell the Wishall. I'm gonna see if anything after the final battle uses the Wishall this time though, and if not there's still that achievement. I get 2 torps, 2 Cera Gunboats, Portable Shield Generator, Summon Alliance Battleship and Captain's Society Induction. I didn't like that incident from the previous mission so I pass HP and flak upgrades all around, hoping it might lower the chances of that happening again. Mission 7The first time I tried this one, I went for a quick finish. After all if it's the last one, we don't need more cash or intel, right? But as it turns out, defeating all the enemies on Turn 1 did not finish the mission! First time I've seen that, I should've tried it with some of the other missions. So I tried again, this time being sure to have Sola and Asaga Awaken to prepare for a longer battle. I use this aggresive wide formation since the intention is to wipe out all the dangerous enemies and not leave much chance for counterattack. As it turns out, I'm still able to wipe out all the initial enemies without them. I use 2 rockets right off the bat because I noticed in my trial run that Chigara's not gonna be able to do much of anything in this mission (which means no FlakOff). I also summon an Alliance battleship to take a huge chunk out of one of the enemy battleships. End of Turn 1, the calm before the storm.Turn 2. The top PACT Support is handled by missiles, it might've taken two volleys because shooting at PACT Supports from a distance without HitUp is always a bit dicey. Phoenix cuts down 2 others, with my Union Battleship offering Gravity so that the Phoenix has enough EN leftover to use Stealth. (supposedly makes it less likely to be targeted. Since it didn't take damage that turn despite being way off in the outfield, I guess it must've worked) we whittle down the enemies on the bottom-right until there's just the one Assault Carrier left. After using the first Disruption, we end the turn like this. Some new ryders come out on Turn 3, but they're lined up nicely for a Vanguard Cannon. All I had to do was move a PACT Support down-right one space to line up 6 units like this. We end the turn in great shape. 2 Disruptions used. Story spoiler ahead... What! Could it be that Miss Sharr was the rumored traitor?! The Phoenix is more than a match for the Black Jack though, I just need 3 Melees to have Asaga simmer down. Not having the cooking-for-4-turns Black Jack on our side is a large blow to our damage output though, so I start to get concerned about the ships piling up in the distance. End of Turn 4, 3 Disruptions used so far. Aaaagh! She's back! Asaga's a zombie now! What's more, she now reappears the moment you manage to kill the Black Jack again. I guess I'm a little less nervous if she starts over from the right side of the screen each enemy turn though. End of Turn 5, 4 Disruptions used. True to the situation, Asaga only seems to target the Liberty. I just noticed that with the Liberty busy, you can't really repair anyone. It's a good thing I've been fairly successful at controlling damage this round. I'm getting cold feet from staring down all those Neo PACT ships I can barely do anything about, so I have everyone ball up and toss up All Guard. Just one more Disruption, don't choke at the end! Our defense was solid, and only a handful of missiles managed to get through. Everyone survives, and the Liberty uses Disruption one last time. Victory! Results |
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Post by Marx-93 on Mar 10, 2016 0:58:41 GMT -8
Yeah, I also had to ball up everyone and toss All Guard sometimes (specially with the final boss).
It's interesting see how different the same battle can be with different strategies though: I tended to reserve most of my missiles and rockets for later turns, so that made the beginning the part where I sweated the most [more than once I used FF(fire everything)+AG(finish the turn)+FF(on the next turn)], while most of the times I could nuke the reinforcements into oblivion (flak resistance 5 and a rocket makes even the Assault Carrier only have a chance of 30% to intercept) through some clever positioning and use of flak off. For example, in this battle I didn't use the last disruption where I could, simply because I realized that with 3 Flak off, a rocket and the Vanguard cannon I could take out all the Assault Carriers; so I took one turn more, wiped the few remaining enemies and went to look at my shiny 20.000 intel.
Of course, all that was on Captain so it's pretty cheap, but it's interesting to look.
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Post by Graph on Mar 10, 2016 18:24:25 GMT -8
Yeah, I also had to ball up everyone and toss All Guard sometimes (specially with the final boss). It's interesting see how different the same battle can be with different strategies though: I tended to reserve most of my missiles and rockets for later turns, so that made the beginning the part where I sweated the most [more than once I used FF(fire everything)+AG(finish the turn)+FF(on the next turn)], while most of the times I could nuke the reinforcements into oblivion (flak resistance 5 and a rocket makes even the Assault Carrier only have a chance of 30% to intercept) through some clever positioning and use of flak off. For example, in this battle I didn't use the last disruption where I could, simply because I realized that with 3 Flak off, a rocket and the Vanguard cannon I could take out all the Assault Carriers; so I took one turn more, wiped the few remaining enemies and went to look at my shiny 20.000 intel. Of course, all that was on Captain so it's pretty cheap, but it's interesting to look. It seems to be really effective in general, we have so many flak sources now that enemies tend to become docile on their turn if we use All Guard. Or they don't know what to do so they'll try closing in, but they don't have enough EN leftover to also use an attack. PACT Supports still seem to be the only thing that can really throw a monkey wrench into that equation. Anyway. Looks like a final battle up ahead. Bought 3 torps, still $2500 short of the Vanguard Spread Field. It probably would've been worth passing up the Black Jack's alt Kinetics and the max CP 5000 upgrades to get that. I'm concerned about the loss of one of our main shielders, so I increase the Liberty's shield range to 3 and power to 50%. RIP, Claude. Mission 8I know I can take a good chunk out of the initial setup on the first turn, so I use a wide starting formation again. It's easier to handle now that the Liberty has range 3 shields. Whoa, red guys showed up right on top of us. I guess we'll just... wait, those are ours. Okay. The addition of the PACT Support on our side-- and the fact of a potential 5 FlakOffs-- doesn't escape my notice. In this case though I use HitUp on one of the Alliance Battleships, leaving me with 4 FlakOffs. So I blow up one Cruiser with kinetics so we can toss a MIRV torp into one of the Battleship/Cruiser groups safely. Also, I realized that the Alliance Battleship missiles are actually pretty solid, even though we're missing AtkUp we're still able to one-shot Torpedo Destroyers in Admiral Mode. Since the Alliance group is kinda on its lonesome up there, I end the turn with All Guard. We have some powerful Kinetics on our side here. I also use HitUp on our Alliance Carrier and PACT Assault Carrier. We manage to clean up with pretty minimal use of rockets and missiles. ...Wait, that's it? Guess it was a warm-up. I was able to afford the Vanguard Cannon upgrade, after all! Results |
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Post by Graph on Mar 19, 2016 15:16:20 GMT -8
Apologies everyone, things got a tad busy. Didn't help that I was playing Fire Emblem at the same time! I upgraded to version 2.0, so if any gameplay changes were made during that time they're active now. I get one torp, the Vanguard Spread Field, and max out on Repair Drones because why not? Don't care too much about the Frigates. The boss is a ryder, so I boost Melee for the Black Jack and Phoenix. Both can Melee 4 times a turn now. Mission 9Starting formationI try to get a low-angle shot with the Vanguards. It's kind of underwhelming after I realize that it only does 750 damage on the extra spaces. Still, it's enough to take out the boss's funnels in one hit. Those things are quite hard to hit, so I have the Seraphim focus on those. (Seraphim starts this one Awakened? Ain't complaining.) After tossing up All Guard, I end the first turn like this. For the rest of the mission in fact, I'm alternating between Full Forward and All Guard. Turn 2... what the? The boss's movement is serious. It ended up behind our formation! For all that though it only shot lasers at the Paladin... and so did everyone else, apparently. We hit the boss with Kinetics wherever possible, and surround it with ships (kinda assuming it can Melee, so...) Start of Turn 3. After smacking the boss around a bit she gets serious. Oh, reinforcements. To be honest though, at this point I'm getting worried that I won't have enough CP to spam Full Forward and All Guard, so their appearance is not unwelcome. (Yes, they're basically food at this point) I didn't realize that she can counterattack now, with melee. Even against ships! Lost a Ryuvian Falcon to that. An Alliance Cruiser took a lot of damage too, before I realize I'm not going to be able to surround the boss this turn. (I guess this isn't the kind of game where you can stop movement by surrounding someone? I'm just grasping really, I have no idea what the boss can do) It fires some scary-looking spreading rockets, which we're thankfully able to stop with our beefy flak defenses. Turn 4! Let's do some damage. KineticsFire all missiles other than Black Jack's. Ugh, this was really disappointing. Would've been a bit better if I saved some of Sunrider's rockets for the end of the salvo. Gravity -> Melee. Yeah, Black Jack's the only way to go... I use SRJ to plug the hole with Sunrider. Wait, the boss can Melee ships. What the hell am I doing? Anyway, we end the turn like this... next turn's probably not going to be pretty. Sure enough, she uses an AoE laser to shoot down 3 Cera Gunboats... through 60 shielding. Hrm. At least the Sunrider still lives. Turn 5, Black Jack's Melee is now doing 1500 damage a pop so it's an easy matter to finish off the boss. ResultsOh hey, I forgot that surrendering is a thing. Of course it had to be on the final battle, where the accumulated cash doesn't really matter anyway. I have some gunboats to buy back... uh, hold the phone. Guess we're not done quite yet! |
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Post by vaendryl on Mar 19, 2016 17:48:53 GMT -8
I probably should up the ECCM of the boss' torps.  |
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Post by Graph on Mar 19, 2016 18:16:49 GMT -8
I probably should up the ECCM of the boss' torps. I was actually thinking of letting the Black Jack's Awakening cook a little longer before advancing to phase 2... and then try to wipe out the boss in one fell swoop. Though I didn't let it go on long enough to see if it automatically advances to the next phase after a few turns. (If that's not already a thing, my apologies to all, haha) |
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Post by Graph on Mar 19, 2016 20:28:15 GMT -8
No chance for upgrades, looks like. I failed the first try on this mission, and the second try wasn't much better-- felt like dumb luck, with my approach. This is the only mission that makes me concerned for Space Whale Mode, though since several players have already done it, I suppose there's some kind of trick you can pull if you know what's coming up. Of all the people to stay loyal to us at this point of the game, the Union mercs are still here? I only bought one Frigate before too... maybe they're not the super-unmotivated dudes the English voices made me think they were? Mission 10I don't want the Sunrider to draw any more aggro than it needs to. This whole mission I only have it move, no attacking at all. I use the other units, I think 3 Paladin missiles included, to take out the two Cruisers in front. Ended the turn like this, keeping Full Forward. Not like All Guard would help much with our lack of shields... Turn 2. We really don't have much offensive punch without the Sunrider pitching in so we just destroy three ryders and wound a Battleship. Having the Sunrider head straight for that bunch will probably get me killed like last time so I aim for the lower-right corner instead. I wonder what are the laser hit rates at that range? I'm pretty sure they'd shoot down the Paladin faster if they didn't bother with missiles at all. I toss up All Guard at the end of the turn since we've got the CP, I plan to reach the destination in two more turns. Turn 4, more reinforcements. The Paladin's somehow been hanging on back there, using Drawfire when it needs refreshing. Despite using Full Forward we're not able to take out everything on the lower-right so the Sunrider goes up and kisses the remaining Cruiser. Bleh, it's probably a lost cause, but let's see what happens. All Guard, Repair Drone, let's go. The Carrier hits the Sunrider with its Kinetics. That's like 1500 right there? A ryder lands a hit too. For some reason, the Cruiser right in front of the Sunrider... fires at something else. This guy, he's taking pity on me. The Sunrider escapes with 212 HP, and with that comes the win for Admiral Mode! ResultsClosest call in this game, no contest. Next time I should probably be upgrading the Sunrider in preparation for this mission, not the boss of the previous mission. From the part of the game that's NOT voiced, I kinda get an idea of where things cut off in 1.00. In light of that I think 2.00 was a good move, and I feel pretty fulfilled as the game closes. I always got the feeling there was more to Claude than meets the eye, though for her to be a full-blown KAMI-SAMA was a bit more than I bargained for. I'm glad her personality didn't change much after the reveal; the ship(?) wouldn't feel the same without Claude doing Claude stuff. Kuushana got quite the intro and I can't wait to see more of her. Yup. Maybe when game updates stabilize a bit I'll record a run. I have a capture card now so I don't have to worry so much about the game lagging even more than usual when I run the recording software. Space Whale Mode? Or maybe something weird like Captain no upgrades. Seems other players are doing a better job of Space Whaling than I would, at this point. Until next time, folks! |
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Post by Drath on Mar 19, 2016 22:45:51 GMT -8
Graph On mission 10: This was the one mission where I felt the All Power to Engines order would have made a huge difference, but yea it would have trivialized the battle had it been allowed. And no it isn't available even if you have made the relevant store purchase. In my actual playthrough, I did more or less the same, was also rushing through, spending most of Sunrider's EN on moves rather than attacks and it was a little hairy towards the end. The difficulty in this one is quite dependent on how many upgrades you put into Paladin, Phoenix and if you had gotten Ryuvian Falcons earlier. Not really something predictable on a first playthrough but I take it in stride, just as how escort missions were in MoA. The initial position is not ideal for offensive measures via kinetics and Paladin tends to lag behind. I used Suppressive Fire a good bit to improve my chances of hitting. Yes you can get an initial burst with missiles/rockets but that might not be sufficient to last the whole battle. I reserved a rocket for the Carrier though it's really quite a tossup with all those overlapping flak fields. Assuming the rocket hits, a Falcon can do clean up with kinetics provided the Carrier is already debuffed with Suppressive Fire. Paladin might be too far off to do damage. I'm pondering if it might actually be a little less risky perhaps to turtle a bit halfway through with All Guard, and getting all ships into range (especially Paladin) rather than rushing forward continuously. I didn't use all my Repair Drones or CP at the end of my playthrough so there's probably some slack to be had there. It's mostly burst damage that kills. On mission 9: The AI for the boss seemed a little better this time round, compared to beta 12.4a, where I found her freezing up (not shooting, not moving) when surrounded. This time round she did use her uber boss rockets and lasers which can be pretty deadly when they connect. There are still instances though where she moved around as if trying to get around the crowd of units. On mission 7: With the Alliance Carrier and the 2 Alliance Infantry removed, this mission is now tougher than the beta 12.4a version. Enemy Blackjack's hps are doubled to 1600 and enemy reinforcement waves arrive earlier than they did in beta 12.4a. I still think AI for said spoiler enemy above needs some tweaking though. There were turns where it just froze in place where it spawned and turns where it merely moved without firing anything. To be fair, I had Bianca clumped up with Liberty for about 70% shields and they were quite far from the right edge of the map, but still, I think improving pathing and necessitating that shots be fired every turn should be considered.
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Post by Graph on Mar 19, 2016 23:38:06 GMT -8
Graph On mission 10: This was the one mission where I felt the All Power to Engines order would have made a huge difference, but yea it would have trivialized the battle had it been allowed. And no it isn't available even if you have made the relevant store purchase. In my actual playthrough, I did more or less the same, was also rushing through, spending most of Sunrider's EN on moves rather than attacks and it was a little hairy towards the end. [...] I'm pondering if it might actually be a little less risky perhaps to turtle a bit halfway through with All Guard, and getting all ships into range (especially Paladin) rather than rushing forward continuously. I didn't use all my Repair Drones or CP at the end of my playthrough so there's probably some slack to be had there. It's mostly burst damage that kills. Is there a list of store purchases that require certain choices in the story? I'm not too familiar with what's out there. I keep hearing about a splash damage upgrade to MIRV torps, at least that's what I think people are saying. On further inspection it seems like Mission 10 doesn't really have a "GET OUT" wave like some other missions of this type do, probably because of your lack of defensive options. After the PACT guys show up on Turn 6, that's it. No more Carriers. (On that note the difference between difficulties is HUGE, I wiped out all the enemies in Captain Mode without having to repair the Sunrider) Might be worthwhile to take it slow, though dealing with the Alliance Carrier with this sparse group is still scary. The Kinetics on that thing seem alarmingly accurate for how much damage it does, they even hit my Gunboats if I put those too close. Maybe attempt to snipe them from the other side of the screen with lasers... might be the reason we're given 3 sources of ShdJam to work with. |
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Post by Drath on Mar 20, 2016 0:06:59 GMT -8
Graph On store purchases: Ongessite Injection Rods and Liquid Ongessite Fuel requires that you cover up the truth at Ongess, which generally avail you of speedier movement. Phoenix gets a cloaking device (buyable via store) that upgrades her basic Stealth if Icari's affection score is high enough. I'm not aware of a splash damage upgrade to MIRV (splash damage being currently 50%) unless it's a very recent addition.
The way I understand it, Alliance Carrier kinetics are essentially split into 4 shots, with each shot dealing about 400 dmg. So it isn't an all or nothing affair like other kinetics. Even if the accuracy is low, it can probably still hit with 1 or 2 shots just like pulse or assault, which is what makes it quite troublesome to deal with. I agree with sniping it from afar and that mission 10 doesn't really have a particularly deadly "GET OUT" wave. With enough upgrades into energy damage and cost reduction, I fancy Sunrider's pulse has a fair chance of outpacing it in damage as Alliance units don't really usually have thick armor, unlike their PACT counterparts.
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Post by vaendryl on Mar 20, 2016 0:52:34 GMT -8
having Cosette in mission 10 really helps out a ton, but that does require she's alive at that point, and that the Havoc is in fighting shape. at least you had the falcons. There is no upgrade to the splash effect of the MIRV torps. people probably refer to the MIRV upgrade itself as 'the splash upgrade'. that negative net gain though btw, Claude is probably less straight up divinity and more like in possession of tech so advanced she might as well be. |
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Post by Marx-93 on Mar 20, 2016 1:49:54 GMT -8
Nice finish.
On mission 10, I basically agree on almost everything. In Captain is really quite easier; the Carrier is quite the scare, but the relatively low flak of Alliance units makes use of rockets feasible and really helps a lot. I really don't know how I would have done that mission without the MIRVS (well, I know how I would have done it, but it really would have required me sweating a lot and praying to the RNG).
And yeah, the boss was cool on Beta 12.4, but on here it's even more of a monster; quite fitting as the final boss. Still, it really counterattacks with melee? I remember Drath talking about he surrounded with Gunboats in 12.4, is that now not possible?
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Post by Drath on Mar 20, 2016 2:49:48 GMT -8
having Cosette in mission 10 really helps out a ton, but that does require she's alive at that point, and that the Havoc is in fighting shape. that negative net gain though Oh yea Cosette, I totally forgot about her. I guess that shows how much I care about her But yea a few more rockets and missiles would be great. I actually think it might be nice to have occasional side missions in future where the expected Funds gain is negative. Could be for a good cause, or for a favor. Not every mission needs to be profitable... besides even if you lose some Funds, you still gain Intel (assuming the current system is maintained in future releases). I really don't know how I would have done that mission without the MIRVS (well, I know how I would have done it, but it really would have required me sweating a lot and praying to the RNG). And yeah, the boss was cool on Beta 12.4, but on here it's even more of a monster; quite fitting as the final boss. Still, it really counterattacks with melee? I remember Drath talking about he surrounded with Gunboats in 12.4, is that now not possible? On doing it without rockets, I'd stick with the plan on keeping some distance and hopefully get into a position where you can take on whatever is nearest piecemeal. I don't really know how feasible it is, but if I get some time off during the weekend I might give it a go. On surrounding the boss with Gunboats, I pulled it into melee range of the Gunboats using the Union Battleship, NOT by moving units into its melee range. That definitely triggers a melee counterattack even back in beta 12.4a and will most likely get said unit obliterated. So no change there. Of course in the actual release, it reacts a little better when surrounded and actually tries to cut its way out in some cases, whereas in beta 12.4a, there was a turn or two where it just sat there and missed the whole turn. |
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Post by Graph on Mar 20, 2016 10:36:05 GMT -8
Graph On store purchases: Ongessite Injection Rods and Liquid Ongessite Fuel requires that you cover up the truth at Ongess, which generally avail you of speedier movement. Phoenix gets a cloaking device (buyable via store) that upgrades her basic Stealth if Icari's affection score is high enough. I'm not aware of a splash damage upgrade to MIRV (splash damage being currently 50%) unless it's a very recent addition.
Hmm, I thought I picked mostly Icari choices. Let's see...
Huh, apparently you miss a lot of Icari points if you save the diplomats. I thought that could've gone either way because of how that arc ended, though it's a nice touch that the extra store options come from making "Prince" choices.
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Post by valikdu on Mar 20, 2016 11:26:16 GMT -8
Graph On store purchases: Ongessite Injection Rods and Liquid Ongessite Fuel requires that you cover up the truth at Ongess, which generally avail you of speedier movement. Phoenix gets a cloaking device (buyable via store) that upgrades her basic Stealth if Icari's affection score is high enough. I'm not aware of a splash damage upgrade to MIRV (splash damage being currently 50%) unless it's a very recent addition.
Hmm, I thought I picked mostly Icari choices. Let's see...
Huh, apparently you miss a lot of Icari points if you save the diplomats. I thought that could've gone either way because of how that arc ended, though it's a nice touch that the extra store options come from making "Prince" choices.
Actually, you get a lot of points if you agree to go along with the plan, and then change your mind when you find out about the kids. |
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Post by Graph on Mar 20, 2016 11:42:51 GMT -8
Actually, you get a lot of points if you agree to go along with the plan, and then change your mind when you find out about the kids. Ah! That makes sense, it looks like it's not part of the LD new game checklist. I guess it can play out differently if you carried over a save from the previous games. I heard saving Cosette without the Wishall is also a thing when going this route, too. I... will probably leave that to folks with the fortitude to replay the other games though. Might be hard for me to go back to the older battle engine now, especially with MoA-scale battles! |
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